eDrum MIDI Mapper Manual - Using Volume Envelopes for Cymbal Chokes and Hi-Hat Muting

eDrum MIDI Mapper: Using Volume Envelopes

How it works

For a moment, imagine playing a drum sound on a keyboard. Normally drum samples are setup in such a way that the full sample is played whether you hit and hold a key, or hit and immediately release a key. The goal is to setup your sampling software to treat a drum sound more like a synth, where holding the key down allows the sample to finish, but releasing the key will immediately mute playback.

eDrum MIDI Mapper basically simulates key presses on a keyboard. When a Note-On event is received, it "presses" a key, when a Note-Off event is received it "releases" the key. When a Pad has note-off choking enabled, eDrum MIDI Mapper ignores incoming Note-Off events for that Pad, and generates it's own Note-Off events (i.e. releases the key) if and when a cymbal choke or hi-hat mute is determined to be required.

How to set up your sampler

Describing how to use volume envelopes for every sampler under the Sun is beyond the scope of this document, but the process should be similar for any sampler or rompler that supports Volume or ADSR (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelopes.

In general, you should enable volume envelopes only for cymbal and hi-hat instruments, but you can also apply envelopes to entire kits if the samples are integrated into a single patch, or contain mic bleed and/or ambient samples. For the latter cases, eDrum MIDI Mapper has a global Note-Off Filter that will simply ignore all incoming Note-Off messages, allowing all hits to play fully but still enabling chokes for specific pads.

Once a volume envelope is enabled, set the Release time to a small value, while keeping the Attack at its lowest value, and the Decay and Sustain and/or Hold at their maximum values. Release times between 200-400 milliseconds usually sound more realistic than shorter durations as it allows samples to "ring" slightly in a fashion similar to how real cymbals react when choked.

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